Gimme Shelter

“Oh, a storm is threatening my very life today, If I don’t, if I don’t get me some shelter, Lord, I’m gonna fade away ...” — The Rolling Stones/‘Gimme Shelter’

Oddly enough, a rock song lyric describes our situation perfectly. Let me begin by saying that we are middle-class residents of Vacaville, seniors living in an active senior community — we are renting a home, and have done for 16 years. We are being evicted.

How can that be? We are seniors, and there is a statewide moratorium on eviction until June 30? Not so. Apparently — and I say that, because I don’t know, this is COVID, government offices are shut; I can’t get any reliable information — we have been given a verbal eviction notice because, as you well know the housing market along the Interstate-80 corridor has exploded into the biggest, most lucrative seller’s market in the last 50 years. The landlady wants to cash in and take advantage of the COVID-based desperate situation facing home buyers and renters. She wants to sell her/our home. And, of course, she is perfectly entitled to do that.

So what’s the problem? Answer: COVID-19 (And its various mutations). Ever tried moving from your home during a pandemic? But wait, there’s more.

My wife, is a 21-year veteran of Napa County schools’ special needs program. She’s the go-to person who actually leads the team that creates the federally mandated IEP process. She is an essential worker. Her program has been running full-time throughout the school year — 80% of her work is being done from home. The same home which she is expected to vacate before the end of the school term.

How can the powers that be let this happen to an essential worker, a person who is part of the solution, not part of the problem? It’s happening now — she’s still working, it’s her busiest time of the year, and I’m moving our home. I’m 73 years old.

Where is the help? I have contacted every major representative from U.S. Rep. John Garamendi to California Rep. Jim Frazier to the Solano County Clerk of the Court. I have asked questions in town halls presided over by state Sen. Dodd. What answers do I really have? Nothing. Oh, wait — when I called I called the County Sheriff’s Office, the clerk said, very sternly “Yes, we are evicting people.”

Any ideas? As of now, we have no written notification of “termination of tenancy,” simply a verbal threat (delivered by someone who is not even a party to our lease). Can you say duress? If the house is going to be sold, where is the Realtor? None in sight.

What do we want? We want someone to take us seriously, because this is serious: You are about to — and this is happening a lot lately — criminalize someone in the middle-class, while throwing money around saving the people she serves. You are showing us the street — talk about putting the cart before the horse.

— Robert Ailman/Vacaville